An Evasive Argument.

[Footnote]

I hate Double Team. There are few things more annoying than missing an opponent 7 times in a row while they set up and KO you. But I don't believe it should be banned any longer.

Why doesn't it need to be banned? Because in Diamond and Pearl there are so many ways to counter it.

But why bother to unban it, if it's so annoying? Because allowing it will increase the variety of the metagame. Right now we're seeing teams become more and more similar because of the choices we've made about which Pokémon are allowed and which moves are allowed. If we don't have to devote one or two of our team's moveslots to stopping Double Team, we're free to fill our movesets with lots of big-damage moves that cover all types. One step on the way to a more interesting metagame is allowing evasion-increasing moves like Double Team.

First, my (possibly) less-persuasive argument: There are so many damaging moves that bypass evasion. I know these are a joke to many of us. Most of us didn't want to bother because these moves were almost universally 60 power in Advance. But instead of sucking it up and putting one somewhere on our teams, we decided to ban Double Team and be done with it. Well, GameFreak is now meeting us halfway with some new never-miss moves:

Damaging Moves That Cannot Miss:
Aerial Ace
Aura Sphere
Faint Attack
Magical Leaf
Magnet Bomb
Shadow Punch
Shock Wave
Swift
Trump Card
Vital Throw
Struggle

I'll point out the important ones here. First, we've got Aura Sphere. A 90-power special Fighting-type move that can't miss. Nice. Another big one is Trump Card. It's like Swift except the last use has 200 power. It also cannot miss. In a battle environment with Double Team, the old Vital Throw is also quite useful, weighing in at 70 power and always going last, which can have side benefits (especially against Aggron and Bastiodon). Finally, Struggle now cannot miss, so if you do run out of PP missing an obnoxious Double Teamer, at least you can hit it a few times on the way out.

Now for the (hopefully) more persuasive bit, the support moves:

Helpful Support Moves:
Curse used by a Ghost cannot miss.
Defog cannot miss.
Foresight and Odor Sleuth cannot miss in D/P. Miracle Eye also cannot miss.
Haze is still a perfectly viable counter to Evasion-raising moves.
Lock-On and Mind Reader cannot miss in D/P.
Pain Split cannot miss in D/P.
Perish Song still cannot miss.
Psych Up cannot miss in D/P.
Yawn cannot miss in D/P.

Tell me that you cannot afford to put one or two of these moves on your team. All of these moves have side benefits other than helping against Evasion-raisers. Defog clears the opponent's field of Reflect and Light Screen. If you happen to build a team that doesn't use any kind of Spikes, it's a good option. Foresight and Odor Sleuth mean you can hit Spiritomb (and Sableye) for super-effective damage as well as nullify Evasion. Haze is a nice all-purpose stat-resetter for a Pokémon that doesn't have a stat-up move itself. Lock-On and Mind Reader actually serve their purpose now that they cannot miss. Go nuts with the improved 120-power Zap Cannon and the always-fun DynamicPunch! It'll prompt a nice switch from any Double Team user. You can put Psych Up on somthing with Swagger or Flatter for greater synergy; go ahead and let your opponent get 6 Double Teams off before evening the odds with Psych Up. Finally, Yawn is now the most accurate Sleep-inducing move.

Allowing Evasion-raising moves makes all of the moves listed above more viable, along with the Pokémon that learn them. Personally, I probably won't use it anyway, but I like the move options it encourages. And trust me on this: not many things feel better than KOing a Pokémon that has 6 levels of Evasion. Eat Vital Throw, Blissey!

So, should we give it a try? I look forward to your comments.

 

[AJC]

no because the powerfull never miss damage moves are still on VERY few pokemon and most of them are slow and/or frail..and theres nothing stoping a DTer from taunting your attempts to use something like forsight/haze

 

[Life]

DT is not that big of a deal; the whole community is already very hypocritical in the fact that DT/OHKO is banned in ADV. Its part of the bloody game; if your opponent uses it, you can abuse it too. And stop making the bullshit arguement that OHKO/DT is all luck; Pokemon is all luck. One CH is all it takes to end a game; it doesn't matter how much luck is involved. As long there is tiny fragment of luck; there is a lot of LUCK.

 

[Isotope]

Upon returning to the competitive community after not playing since R/B/Y this is something that baffles me. Why deal with or be so willing to find counters to sandstream/tyranitar and yet so hate DT? Every team maker thread that has an unusual pokemon degrades into skarmory/Tyranitar/blissey/salamence do XXXX better so perhaps this would open up the metagame. Even more given the fact that some people just don't like DT/stall teams so some portion of the community wouldn't go that route even given the chance. I just find it odd and somewhat amusing that every reference to D/P metagame talks about how offensive/switch happy it is yet the answer to all out offense is the bane of the community because it depends on probabilities (luck to those of you who apparently refuse to accept statistics).

 

[Lee]

I can't agree that DT should ever be unbanned. You make a good point that there is a lot of new "cannot miss moves," but in suggesting that we put those comparitively weak moves in our movesets just for the sake of countering DT, it gets a little silly.

Most movesets are already crammed with a combination of moves to beat Blissey, Skarmory, Snorlax, TTar, Garchomp and w/e because we know we'll lose if we can't counter them. If DT was to be unbanned, we'd have to worry about yet another thing to counter. Before long our movesets would be decided by themselves, and it would be a lot more mundane than people claim it currently is.

And @ Life, no offense to you in particular but I do believe that anyone who believes DT or OHKO's are fair game obviously don't have very much experience as far as competitive battling goes. It's ridiculous.

 

[X-Act]

Many people have already posted in depth about this subject.

The conclusion, as far as I know, was to test DT out, and if we deem that it is too broken, then ban it. There are arguments that DT + Baton Pass is somewhat broken, but many people agree that DT without Baton Pass isn't.

My guts tell me that DT will never be tested as well as it should, since many people seem too lethargic to even include them in their movesets.

 

[Lee]

Yeah, it's been discussed a bit in here:

http://www.smogon.com/forums/showthread.php?t=18119

And it got quite a few votes Footnote, so who knows? If it is to be legalised though, I'd rather it wasn't used in conjunction with Baton Pass. And it would be MUCH fairer if Roar never missed. I mean, how can you evade soundwaves?

 

[Isotope]

I absolutely fail to see how a 75/60/50 percent chance to hit over the course of three used battle turns is so game breaking WITHOUT baton pass. Of course tons of people love to baton pass attack and defense powerups so pass isn't going to go. Obviously a decision was made somewhere along the line that DT is lame and boring and now it is such ingrained thinking that we will never see it examined properly. With the start or each new generation this is a question that should be re-examined and opened to play testing as metagames do not turn concrete for some time.

That said people are programmed by quicker battles and ingrained thinking and will never give DT a chance. In R/B/Y you often had draws and PP wars deciding matches (well not often but not quite rarely). However RBY had two things going for it that this gen doesn't, no baton pass and the increased critical rate.

X-ACT is exactly right, DT will never be given the chance to be fully evaluated. But the fact that people are seriously debating making Ho-oH playable as a non-uber and yet aren't willing to try DT amazes me.

Still I do not understand the reply that including DT gives you to many bases to cover in making movesets. Thats the fun of pokemon, the never ending struggle to find the perfect team that handles all scenarios. Opening more doors for strategies (DT teams) just broadens the overall depth of the game.

 

[ΩDonut]

Are you sure all of those moves you listed ignore evasion? I think some testing has to be done first.

 

[Lee]

You make great points Isotope, but do you REALLY want to have to be in a situation where it is neccesary for your Dusknoir to know Shadow Punch rather than a more valuable move? Or Zapdos knowing Shock Wave? 60 Base Power? Please!

I'm all for the testing of DT, just to appease other people's curiosities. But I don't like it. Maybe it's because I'm a generally unlucky person...

 

[Isotope]

OK in the current metagame you are forced to include pokemon to deal with sandstream/tar correct? You are forced to account for salamence/blissey when making a team right? Why is DT so different? Its almost as if people WANT to be able to simplify the game to the point that everyone plays with the same 10 pokemon and all that determines who wins is "prediction" (which could be construed to be luck couldn't it? hmmm I'm sure no one wants to hear that).

Pokemon is not a game of execution (like street fighter where you must input commands to make things happen), it is a game of theory fighter/team construction/battle decisions and yes..........LUCK. Since there is no human element involved in making a pokemon do waht you want it to (just select teh move and poof) then all that it has to offer is mental exercise to make it fun.

In all honesty even the harshest haters of evasion/OHKO moves if truthful would admit the reason they hate evasion is not because it is game breaking (I bet most of them didn't play RBY and to a lesser degree GS competitively) but that it is "boring". Well to me anything repetitive becomes "boring". And guess what fighting 10 straight teams that share 4 or 5 pokemon will become just that.

I may just be different but "fun" in terms of Pokemon to me is finding a team that best suits my playstyle and then adapting it to different styles of play and pokemon teams. Guessing an opponents moveset from just seeing one or two moves and being able to translate that into a team dynamic and how to counter it is what makes the game interesting. And the more doors that are open to my opposition the more difficult and rewarding this becomes.

I'm not saying my word is gospel and I KNOW DT will improve 4th gen. I'm saying that it is foolish and short sighted to not pursue this possiblility now, when the game is open and new. Enthusiasism will NEVER be this high anytime in teh near future nor will peoples time investment. What happens if 3 months from now the game has become stale because XXX three teams are basically the only things that win if played seriously? Answer, we ban those things. Or at least we always have. Perhaps the time is now not to ban but to open the environment and see what happens.

 

[chewy]

Why doesn't it need to be banned? Because in Diamond and Pearl there are so many ways to counter it.

Damaging Moves That Cannot Miss:
Aerial Ace
Aura Sphere
Faint Attack
Magical Leaf
Magnet Bomb
Shadow Punch
Shock Wave
Swift
Trump Card
Vital Throw
Struggle

Helpful Support Moves:
Curse used by a Ghost cannot miss.
Defog cannot miss.
Foresight and Odor Sleuth cannot miss in D/P. Miracle Eye also cannot miss.
Haze is still a perfectly viable counter to Evasion-raising moves.
Lock-On and Mind Reader cannot miss in D/P.
Pain Split cannot miss in D/P.
Perish Song still cannot miss.
Psych Up cannot miss in D/P.
Yawn cannot miss in D/P.

Your list of "reasons" has existed from RSE, nothing has really changed. The only serious change is Aura Sphere and the only two OU pokes to learn it are Togekiss and Lucario. And most of those moves are a waste of a moveslot.

I'm all for the testing of DT, just to appease other people's curiosities. But I don't like it. Maybe it's because I'm a generally unlucky person...

It's been tested before, albeit unofficially. The two most dangerous DT pokes were Umbreon and Zapdos (with BP), who laugh at every move that was suggested at "countering DT".

DT is boring. Playing pokemon puts me to fucking sleep when I have to deal with crap like minimize Blissey. It requires no creativity make sets with and no skill, just luck to use effectively.

 

[DoubleX]

Most movesets are already crammed with a combination of moves to beat Blissey, Skarmory, Snorlax, TTar, Garchomp and w/e because we know we'll lose if we can't counter them. If DT was to be unbanned, we'd have to worry about yet another thing to counter. Before long our movesets would be decided by themselves, and it would be a lot more mundane than people claim it currently is.

I agree with this. Everyone's been talking about how much stuff there is to counter this time around, since there are so many Pokemon that can be very real threats with little to no setup required. Allowing Double Team adds just one more thing that everyone has to be able to counter, and it just becomes a process of making teams to counter things, which is where the mundaneness appears (is that a word?). Certain movesets on certain Pokemon would become the only things that would work due to their countering coverage, and you would see only those movesets all the time.

At least in Advance, while you may see the same ten Pokemon more commonly than others, for the most part they have more than one option for a moveset, with some having several options. I would prefer seeing ten or twenty Pokemon that can all wield more than one moveset, to seeing a hundred Pokemon that can only use one moveset each.

Having said that, if the community decides to test Double Team out for at least a while, I'll gladly go along, and I'll give it a try. I'm just uncertain that the results will be positive.

 

[Mekkah]

Double Team has you suffer from moveslot syndrome unless you Baton Pass it, which is one of the main reasons I'd like to see it allowed for a while. Defog is an absolute garbage move though, and what's with the Spikes note?

Ghost-type Curse sucks. Trump Card sucks. Foresight, Miracle Eye and Odor Sleuth are worthless. Sure, they wouldn't be AS worthless anymore with Double Team allowed, but still pretty damn big wastes if your opponent decides to not use Double Team on every single of their Pokemon.

 

[Matt]

Foresight, Miracle Eye and Odor Sleuth are worthless. Sure, they wouldn't be AS worthless anymore with Double Team allowed, but still pretty damn big wastes if your opponent decides to not use Double Team on every single of their Pokemon.

Having one Pokemon know Foresight/Odor Sleuth is no different from having one know Rapid Spin. You can't say they're worthless if Rapid Spin isn't =S If your opponent doesn't use Spikes, you're stuck with a 20 BP move, that is the definition of worthless.

Most movesets are already crammed with a combination of moves to beat Blissey, Skarmory, Snorlax, TTar, Garchomp and w/e because we know we'll lose if we can't counter them. If DT was to be unbanned, we'd have to worry about yet another thing to counter. Before long our movesets would be decided by themselves, and it would be a lot more mundane than people claim it currently is.

So, you'd have to worry about one more thing...so you're going to keep it banned? Remember that this isn't "adding" anything but putting something back in. It's already been expressed that trying to cram your movesets to counter everything is not the way to go in this gen, so this doesn't seem like a problem at all. And what does "movesets being decided by themselves" mean?

You make great points Isotope, but do you REALLY want to have to be in a situation where it is neccesary for your Dusknoir to know Shadow Punch rather than a more valuable move? Or Zapdos knowing Shock Wave? 60 Base Power? Please!

It's not like Dusknoir has a better physical ghost move, and why wouldn't Zapdos be using Rain Dance/Thunder? Hey, look! Rain helps fight Sandstream! Not useless =]

DT is boring. Playing pokemon puts me to fucking sleep when I have to deal with crap like minimize Blissey. It requires no creativity make sets with and no skill, just luck to use effectively.

Playing Pokemon puts someone to sleep when they fight [x], that doesn't mean you should ban it =S If someone doesn't like Tyranitar, is it ok for them to ban it? Why's it ok for something you don't like to be banned for solely that reason, if other people can't get everything they dislike banned?

No set takes creativity to make when you look at it like that, since all you do is give [pokemon] [move]. What's the difference between giving something Double Team and giving something Focus Punch?

Where's the skill in using a move, anyway? For Double Team and every other move, you need to know when to use it and why, it's not like you are even inputting the commands as if this was a fighting game. All you do is select a move, so really there's no difference in "skill" when using Double Team compared to any other move. Can you go in to a fight and spam Thunderbolt and win? No. Can you go in and spam Double Team and win? No, you still won't since you won't be using it at the right time. It doesn't make you invincible, you can still be hit even through your evasion, and if you put Double Team on something like Salamence, don't expect to magically win the match because Double Team is "broken".

 

[Synre]

I am pretty pro Double Team at this point; I don't particularly like the fact it does nothing but change the probabilities of moves hitting/missing since I like to have as much control over what is happening as possible, but if the metagame is even half as offensive as we think it's going to be Double Teaming is going to come at such a massive risk that I'm not terribly worried about it. Taunt is improved and there are so many pokemon that can Scheme or Swords Dance and sweep a team at this point that Double Team just doesn't scare me much. Most of the ideas to counter double team in the original post of this topic are incredibly unrealistic(lol Struggle) and put you at a pretty hefty disadvantage against teams that don't use Double Team, but Double Team itself is fine in my opinion. Some of the stuff on that list really should be used more though, in my opinion(Perish Song and Psych up in particular).

However I really wanted to comment on

OK in the current metagame you are forced to include pokemon to deal with sandstream/tar correct? You are forced to account for salamence/blissey when making a team right? Why is DT so different? Its almost as if people WANT to be able to simplify the game to the point that everyone plays with the same 10 pokemon and all that determines who wins is "prediction" (which could be construed to be luck couldn't it? hmmm I'm sure no one wants to hear that).

This is a really asinine point. I had to include the entirety of this quote for context, and I agree with the beginning of this up to the point 'everyone plays with the same 10 pokemon'. I very much doubt Double Team would do much to increase the viability of more than a handful of pokemon that aren't already playable; it's not going to suddenly make a bunch of low tier pokemon usable like that part of the statement seems to imply

What I really wanted to comment on is the idea of 'predictions being construed as luck,' of course. The only way predictions come down to luck is if you are randomly guessing, and if you are just guessing you are doing just that - not truly predicting.

To some extent yes, predicting is educated guessing, but prediction is the heart of the game. Pokemon is all about figuring out what your opponent is most likely going to do and acting accordingly, and if you're just randomly guessing at what your opponent is doing you are not a good battler. In any turn you basically just have to determine what your opponent is likely to do based on predictions they've made in the past and what you know of their team, as well as what they know about your team, and the risk/reward for each of you making whatever possible decisions you can make. That's basically the core of the game there, and there's not really much luck involved - mind games and educated guessing, mostly.

 

[Hipmonlee]

Having one Pokemon know Foresight/Odor Sleuth is no different from having one know Rapid Spin. You can't say they're worthless if Rapid Spin isn't =S If your opponent doesn't use Spikes, you're stuck with a 20 BP move, that is the definition of worthless.

Yeah but having one pokemon know foresight is not a DT counter. What pokemon would you give foresight to and then say "yep, I am pretty safe should my opponent use DT". i am not suggesting Rapid Spin achieves this, but if you use Rapid Spin, you will know before the battle exactly what you need to do to get rid of spikes, whereas double-team still will catch you unawares.

At the moment I am just picking out one argument to dispute, but in this thread the rest are just as bad. I am a supporter of DT in DP, but I really feel the arguments put forward in this thread are pretty flawed. For both sides.

Have a nice day.

 

[Glen]

i quite enjoy how the pro-dt side claims that the game is "open and new", as well as stale and repetitive

just something to think about

 

[Forsety]

You know there is one plain reason Double Team is broken. Everything and their uncle's aunt can learn it. If it was limited to certain critters like with Minimize it'd be alot more viable.

Theres nothing to stop even the likes of our local friendly Baton Passers or Garchomp, T-tar abusing it to hell and back. Sure Butterfree can fight back with DT but honestly what are you going to fear more?

Getting only 60-80% accuracy on a Garchomp/Salamence/Metagross?

Getting only 60-80% accuracy on a Butterfree/Ariados/Farfetch'd?


Although I'm not completely anti-DT, I'd still be interested to see it in the current game just to judge if I'm wrong. Its not exactly the same level as say letting a Mewtwo into UU.

 

[Jumpman16]

I think it's pretty widely accepted by those who literally know what they're talking about that DT+BP is still cheap — we're talking about solely Double Team on one pokemon here.

 

[Footnote]

Are you sure all of those moves you listed ignore evasion? I think some testing has to be done first.

I do not own the game yet, myself. My information comes from Serebii.net, which has made mistakes in the past. All the support moves above are listed as having accuracy 0, most of which had accuracy 100 in Advance. As always, I won't say no to testing.

Your list of "reasons" has existed from RSE, nothing has really changed. The only serious change is Aura Sphere and the only two OU pokes to learn it are Togekiss and Lucario. And most of those moves are a waste of a moveslot.

It's been tested before, albeit unofficially. The two most dangerous DT pokes were Umbreon and Zapdos (with BP), who laugh at every move that was suggested at "countering DT".

DT is boring. Playing pokemon puts me to fucking sleep when I have to deal with crap like minimize Blissey. It requires no creativity make sets with and no skill, just luck to use effectively.

I'm not sure that Blissey and Umbreon are going to laugh off Aura Sphere, Vital Throw, Pain Split and many of the others listed.

I agree with this. Everyone's been talking about how much stuff there is to counter this time around, since there are so many Pokemon that can be very real threats with little to no setup required. Allowing Double Team adds just one more thing that everyone has to be able to counter, and it just becomes a process of making teams to counter things, which is where the mundaneness appears (is that a word?). Certain movesets on certain Pokemon would become the only things that would work due to their countering coverage, and you would see only those movesets all the time.

At least in Advance, while you may see the same ten Pokemon more commonly than others, for the most part they have more than one option for a moveset, with some having several options. I would prefer seeing ten or twenty Pokemon that can all wield more than one moveset, to seeing a hundred Pokemon that can only use one moveset each.

Having said that, if the community decides to test Double Team out for at least a while, I'll gladly go along, and I'll give it a try. I'm just uncertain that the results will be positive.

The thing about this is, the game is already overcentralized, but most people won't even consider banning the legendaries and 600-BST Pokémon that are causing it. "They have counters!" Yeah, everything has counters. But when you see almost every team being made with the same pool of 15 Pokémon, you know something's wrong. If it weren't for these overpowered Pokémon, we wouldn't have to build teams of counters at all. We could actually be creative with our movesets and actually use most of the fully-evolved Pokémon to create teams that work well together. This community has created a set of Pokémon and rules that encourage overcentralization, so please don't tell me about already having to fill your team with counters. You've brought it upon yourselves.

By the way, DoubleX, I'm not trying to pick on you here. You just articulated the "We have enough to deal with already" argument the best, and I appreciate that.

At this point, adding stuff like Double Team might be the catalyst this community needs to realize that it's not possible to counter everything.

Double Team has you suffer from moveslot syndrome unless you Baton Pass it, which is one of the main reasons I'd like to see it allowed for a while. Defog is an absolute garbage move though, and what's with the Spikes note?

Ghost-type Curse sucks. Trump Card sucks. Foresight, Miracle Eye and Odor Sleuth are worthless. Sure, they wouldn't be AS worthless anymore with Double Team allowed, but still pretty damn big wastes if your opponent decides to not use Double Team on every single of their Pokemon.

You're pretty dismissive about a lot of these moves. Foresight, Miracle Eye and Odor Sleuth are worthless because you've banned Double Team. If you're 'forced' to use them, then you're 'forced' to use Pokémon that learn them. In Advance, Ghost-type Curse and Perish Song hit through Protect, and I bet they go through Subs, too.

At the moment I am just picking out one argument to dispute, but in this thread the rest are just as bad. I am a supporter of DT in DP, but I really feel the arguments put forward in this thread are pretty flawed. For both sides.

Have a nice day.

It's fine for you to come in and point out that all our logic is flawed, but I'd appreciate if you'd tell us how before walking away. If you're a supporter of DT, but you don't like any of our arguments, then logic would denote that you must have your own, better argument for allowing Double Team. I'd be grateful if you'd share it with us.

Oh, and you have a nice day, too.

 

[striker64]

Your list of "reasons" has existed from RSE, nothing has really changed. The only serious change is Aura Sphere and the only two OU pokes to learn it are Togekiss and Lucario. And most of those moves are a waste of a moveslot.

I wanted to comment on this. Do you want to know one move that I always thought would be a waste of a moveslot and would never amount to anything? Quick Attack and its variations. Now you see it on several Pokemon. Why? Because Salac Berry Reversal/Flail gained some popularity, and just Salac Berry in general. So did you just outright ban Salac Berry? No, you found a way around it and found that an attack that you once thought was outright useless was extremely good in this situation.

Don't say moveslot syndrome either. What do you use Quick Attack and its variations on? Breloom is one. Mach Punch is a popular move on him. I could make any number of movesets for Breloom without Mach Punch but in thinking about Salac berry I have to include it in there, so I push one of those potential moves out. Swellow in UU is another. Ariel Ace/Return/HP Ground/Facade with Choice Band seemed like an excellent moveset to me. With Salac Berry, Quick Attack becomes necessary so Swellow doesn't get KO'ed. You deal with it and make new strategies.

Did not meant to single you out, you just had the most relevant quote.

 

[Mekkah]

The thing about this is, the game is already overcentralized, but most people won't even consider banning the legendaries and 600-BST Pokémon that are causing it. "They have counters!" Yeah, everything has counters. But when you see almost every team being made with the same pool of 15 Pokémon, you know something's wrong. If it weren't for these overpowered Pokémon, we wouldn't have to build teams of counters at all. We could actually be creative with our movesets and actually use most of the fully-evolved Pokémon to create teams that work well together. You have created a set of Pokémon and rules that encourage overcentralization, so please don't tell me about already having to fill your team with counters. You've brought it upon yourselves.

I'd like to accentuate on something Synre said here: where does Double Team come in here? Will Double Team suddendly make you fear Magcargo because it now has one more move at his disposal?

You're pretty dismissive about a lot of these moves. Foresight, Miracle Eye and Odor Sleuth are worthless because you've banned Double Team. If you're 'forced' to use them, then you're 'forced' to use Pokémon that learn them. In Advance, Ghost-type Curse and Perish Song hit through Protect, and I bet they go through Subs, too.

These mechinical things make little to no difference. Ghost-type Curse is horribly inpractical: what are the chances you pull off a move that cuts your HP in half? Belly Drum is pretty risky, but is somewhat saved by the fact that you are probably going to grab that Salac boost and sweep with it. To let Curse have any effect at all, your opponent has to stay in on you (which he won't unless you trap him) and he must not kill you, both of which are hard enough to pull off by themselves, let alone with only 50% of your HP and a turn wasted.

Foresight, Miracle Eye and Odor Sleuth, like Hipno said, don't really counter Double Team. Well, they counter the move, but when you start taking Pokemon that learn these three into account, then the ones that learn Double Team, you'll find they won't help much.

I believe Trump Card becomes better than Return after you burned nearly your complete PP or something, or after 5 turns. Either way, it's way too underpowered to consider. You'll probably do more damage with Return on average the first 3 turns than with Trump Card.

Despite what it may seem like, I'm pro-Double Team. I just agree with Hipno and Synre that the way both sides of the argument are represented are flawed.

 

[SDShamshel]

The main thing with Odor Sleuth/Foresight/Miracle Eye is that it is good for countering not Double Team alone but Double Team + Baton Pass combos.

We're all worried about it being super broken awesome terrible fest, but Foresight and friends DO get passed from Pokemon to Pokemon, so if the opponent wants to neutralize the permanent loss of evasion, they will have to switch, thus breaking the BP Chain.

 

[Footnote]

I'd like to accentuate on something Synre said here: where does Double Team come in here? Will Double Team suddendly make you fear Magcargo because it now has one more move at his disposal?

I'm not suggesting that Double Team is the panacea to all our look-alike-team ills.

Let me take a step back. I believe that in order to make our teams and battles more interesting, many things need to be changed at once. However, when I suggest one change without the others, like I did here, the fact that the other things have not been changed works as a counter-argument.

So, in this particular case, we've got the "We don't have moveslots available to counter Double Team because we have to counter standards" argument. Why don't we? Because there are Pokémon allowed that can hit hard, take hits, move fast and have a great movepool.

Let's try it from the other direction, shall we? "Let's ban the overpowered standards!" "No! They have counters, and are hence not overpowered!"

So suggesting any one change doesn't usually work, and suggesting all the changes at once doesn't get a lot of support.

I see it like a logic problem. Right now we have a set of rules and allowed Pokémon that we call 'Standard Play'. Let's call that set X. Somewhere we have a set of rules and allowed Pokémon that the most people will enjoy and find interesting. Let's call that set Y. The assumption around here is that once D/P starts, we'll be able to take our current set X and apply steps. One step might be banning Tyranitar. One step might be allowing OHKOs. These are just examples. Eventually, you'll get to a point where the metagame settles down and a lot of people will assume that that's set Y.

What they don't realize is that there may not be a sequence of legal steps that gets us from set X to set Y. For instance, if we ban one legendary, maybe that opens a void and overcentralizes the game around another. So we add the legendary back in and try something else, when what we really needed to do was take a different step.

My real argument is that a sequence of steps won't work. We need a jump. The reason I have a bias toward the set of rules that I use is because it's worked in Advance to create a much more interesting metagame than the one I've seen on NetBattle and on these boards. I guarantee you that we never got to set Y in Advance. If we take a jump, we can always take steps from there to tweak it. Even if we don't get to set Y, we might have found something we enjoy more than anything approximating set X.

But nobody wants to take a jump. It's too risky. There's no guarantee it'll succeed. Besides, people like being experts at a metagame they already know and are comfortable with.

So I still search for that mythical sequence of steps that will get us from set X to set Y. Maybe allowing Double Team is the first step. It's probably not, but I'm driven to keep trying.

Sorry for getting so far off topic. We now return you to our regularly scheduled thread.